


closed casket

by aubadechild



Series: ShuAke Confidant Week 2018 [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Angst, Cafe Leblanc (Persona 5), Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 19:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16455590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aubadechild/pseuds/aubadechild
Summary: Two+ years post-canon, Akechi Goro suffers a brief lapse of judgment that leads him to temporarily wander out of his new life and back into Ren’s, an unwelcome apparition from a life Ren left behind.{ mini-fic written for Shuake Confidant Week 2018 Day One. }





	closed casket

Against the foggy windowpanes of Leblanc’s familiar front door the rain mimics Akechi and demands to be let in. The first rule Akechi’s ever broken was the one implied by the ancient  _Closed_ sign hanging from the peg.  _Don’t knock,_ it warns.  _Don’t be that person._  And now, watching Ren manage to remove any trace of affection from the way he moves as he brews Akechi a cup of coffee calls into doubt whether this small act of rebellion was worth it, but seeing as he’s inside (the look on Ren’s  _face_ through the window, smeared like watercolor and pale, as though he’d seen a ghost—well, hadn’t he?), and as warm as a drowned rat could hope to be, it must be. _Might be._

“How’s post-obituary life treating you?” Ren asks. It’s an accusation thinly veiled behind a joke. He pulls the apron tighter and his lips thinner and Akechi’s stomach tenses in preparation for violence even though there is no threat of violence and then his sides ache like the aftermath of an embrace, like the absence of hands where hands once were.

“Which would you prefer: good news, or the truth?” Akechi responds. The beginnings of a smile twitch at the corners of his lips. Finger by finger he peels off sopping gloves and lays them out to dry on the stool next to him. Ren glances over his shoulder and he’s got a stranger’s eyes, the kind of expression that says if his friends were here he’d be whispering something to them.

“That bad, huh.” Something sizzles and Ren curses. It’s been two years, more, but he still tugs at that single lock of hair that never seems to match the length of the rest, little outlier always sticking out. It eases something in Akechi that hasn’t been eased since long before they watched each other disappear behind opposite sides of an impassable wall in a cognitive world. “I went to your funeral, you know. Closed casket. Sojiro helped cater. I made sweets for the reception.”

Akechi’s shock has never been an act. Even when his authentic self had been buried under layers of sediment and ever-shifting masks, his bruised heart of hearts had always had this annoying habit of crawling up his throat whenever Ren was around. Like it resonated in proximity to his sworn enemy. Like they’d been carved from the same star—

He shakes the sentiment from his head. Now is not the time to wax poetic on years of pining, of loss. Now is the time to apologize.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I—I didn’t realize…”

Ren’s knuckles are visibly white around the handle of the coffee pot.

“You never do, do you,” he tells Akechi. He’s turned around now, not quite able to meet Akechi’s eyes. “I  _mourned_  you. We all”—he pauses, shakes his head—“well, a lot of us did. I still do. And part of me still doubted—always did—but do you know what they call that? The first stage of grief. The one I never moved past.”

Akechi searches for somewhere to rest his gaze, somewhere not facing Ren’s brokenness.  _The cracks he caused._ Had he had a  _choice_? No, he  _couldn’t_  have. If someone—if  _Ren_  tells him, if he even  _implies_  that there might have been another path, a path where his betrayal of the Thieves was not a forgone conclusion, where his brief stint among them had saved him instead of serving as yet another reminder of his own shortcomings, that knowledge would destroy him. He could not have changed. Rebirth requires death.

He reassures himself of this, casts the mounting doubt aside _(as he always has)_.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I suppose I don’t really know why I’m here, other than the fact that in all honesty I expected you to be miles away from Tokyo. I only stopped by for old times’ sake, to see if I could find some small clue as to what you’ve been up to... part of me was sure this place would have collapsed in your absence.”

“It didn’t,” is Ren’s curt reply. He pushes a steaming mug in the vague direction of his only patron before brushing a hand back through his hair  _(is it shaking?)._ “Finish it quickly. We’re closed.”

Akechi smiles sadly and holds up his hand to refuse the cup. “No, I…I’m sorry for bothering you. I should leave before I miss the train. Forgive me for taking advantage of your hospitality. I’ll make it up to you someday.”

Ren swallows. His bulky frames—the same ones he wore in high school, but far worse for wear—do little to hide the sheen of the tears that threaten his eyes. He tilts his chin toward the ceiling and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

“You really don’t have to do that. I think you should probably just go.”

Akechi looks down at his bare palms, then balls them into fists. Even after abandoning his favorite tan-coat-and-black-slack combination, after abandoning all aspects of the life he thought defined him, the gloves remained. He’d thought they always would.

He leaves them on the stool when he departs.

**Author's Note:**

> "Why is Ren back in Tokyo-" HE IS VISITING AND HE NEEDS THAT DOUGH. This fic precedes [wake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471784). It can also be found on [Tumblr](https://aubadechild.tumblr.com/post/179569177534/closed-casket-shuake-week-day-one-food-foil), if you fancy that sort of thing.


End file.
